


We'll Be Your Home

by Bittodeath



Category: Captain America (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Adoptive Parents - Freeform, Families of Choice, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Gen, World War II, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 11:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19131301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bittodeath/pseuds/Bittodeath
Summary: In the wreckage of a train, Steve and Bucky find one survivor: a boy named Erik Lehnsherr.They find themselves adopting a mutant child without ever planning to.





	We'll Be Your Home

**Author's Note:**

> Idk I had a sudden realization that "WAIT they were all alive at the same point in history" and my brain immediately went with Bucky adopting Erik as his son.

Steve looked at the wreckage, seething with anger and overwhelmed by sadness. The Nazis had blown up the train, with everyone inside it. How they had known the Howling Commandos were coming to take hold of this train, he didn’t know. But the facts were there: their plan to save all the poor people who were sent to concentration camps had failed.

_Fucking war_ , he cursed inwardly with a sharp intake of breath.

“Fucking war”, Bucky said beside him.

He was about to turn on his heels when he heard it. A sharp knock against metal, coming from the wreckage. He stilled.

“Did you hear that?”  
“Hear what?” Bucky asked, his eyebrows raised curiously.  
_“That”_ , he said as there was another loud knock.

_Hilfe_ , a voice called, muffled and desperate. His mouth dried as realization settled in.

“There’s someone in there”, he said urgently. “Someone _alive_.”  
“Shit”, Bucky cursed, running after him towards the train.

He was only slightly slower than him: whatever experiences Zola had done on him, he was now enhanced. Not as much as Steve, but enough to be able to keep up. Enough to be more than human. The voice was still calling, knocking against the metal.

“We’re coming, hang on in there!” Steve called. “Keep talking so we can find you!”

Loud, frightened sobs answered him, and the metal creaked and groaned, as though crushed in a giant fist. They pinpointed where the calls were coming from and, together, they lifted a misshapen slate of metal. A boy, tall and lanky, was curled up under there. He was covered in snow and snoot, and it looked as though the metal had bended to make some kind of shell around him. He was young, though.

“It’s alright”, Bucky called softly. “You’re safe now.”  
_“B-Bist du Amerikaner?”_ the boy asked, his voice broken from so much screaming.  
_“Ja”_ , Bucky answered in German. “Are you hurt?” he went on, still in German.  
“N-No, I don’t think so”, he said, curled over himself still, probably cold with his too thin clothes.  
“I’ve got him”, Steve said with a nod, sliding his arms under the boy’s knees and back.

Bucky hurried to get a thick blanket, in which he wrapped the kid up tightly. He started to make some hot broth from his own rations, which he gave to the boy. Steve had taken him back to their camp and wrapped him in yet another blanket. He was finally getting warmer, and once he’d been fed, he was able to talk again.

“I’m Steve Rogers”, Steve said “and this is Bucky Barnes. What’s your name?”

The boy – he couldn’t be more than fourteen – licked his dried, cracked lips, holding onto his blankets with a white knuckled grip.

“Erik”, he finally said. “Erik Lehnsherr.”  
“You are safe now, Erik”, Bucky said gently. “How about you rest a bit, okay?”

Erik was exhausted: he fell asleep on Bucky’s cot without thinking about it twice. Gently, Bucky brushed away grim black strands of hair.

“Poor kid”, he breathed.

*

A week later, Erik was still with them, and they didn’t have the heart to make him go elsewhere. He had latched onto them, afraid to be left adrift in a world at war where nothing was sure anymore. And Steve could tell Bucky was getting attached. And, alright, maybe he was too.

“I can come!” Erik protested. “I want to help!”  
“You wouldn’t even know how to shoot a gun!” Steve replied. “It’s too dangerous!”  
“Bucky, please, tell him!”

Bucky considered them and shrugged.

“Usually, I would agree with you, but Erik might be right. I can teach him to be a sharpshooter, that way he’ll be out of most fights and he’ll be able to help. Does that seem good to you?”

Steve gritted his teeth, but eventually relented, and Bucky taught Erik how to shoot a rifle. The first time he shot, he got so surprised he accidentally crushed the rifle like it was nothing. And Bucky understood how he had survived the train wreck.

“You have a gift”, he said gently and slightly in awe.

Erik opened his eyes wide, staring at his bare hands.

“I can control metal?” he said in wonder. “Can you help me? Can you help me control it? I can be useful if I know how to use it!”

Bucky grinned and clapped his shoulder.

“I’ll do my best, Erik. It’s a promise.”

Steve was put in the confidence, and Erik’s secret training started, just as his more “formal” training in hand-to-hand combat had started. He had become the mascot of the Howling Commandos.

*

“I can do it!” Erik yelled, holding his hands out to the tank coming his way. “I know I can!”

His powers had developed far beyond their hopes, with his diligence and hard work, along with Steve’s and Bucky’s encouragements and glowing pride. He was now part of their main assets. The tank came to a stop, and then started to crumple inwardly, crushing its occupants.

“You did good”, Steve said, ruffling his hair.  
“Thanks, Dad”, Erik replied.

There was an awkward pause, and Steve smiled. With warmth and gentleness, a smile he only had for Bucky and Erik. A smile that felt like home.

“You got it, son.”

*

With Erik’s help, Bucky was saved in extremis from a deadly fall in the Alps, and Steve from a crash with the Valkyrie. The war ended: they could finally go home.

“Do you want to come with us?” Steve asked.  
“I thought we would just bring him without asking”, Bucky laughed, his arm around Erik’s shoulders. “Steve is crap with the law, so I dealt with it… Erik, if you sign the dotted lines, you’ll officially be my son, and an American citizen”, he added, waving a stack of papers.  
“How could I ever say no”, Erik said with a smile, his hand trembling as he signed the documents.

It was good to have a home again.

*

“I’m home”, Erik called, tossing his keys up and floating them to their designed place.

He took off his shoes and coat and walked into the living-room, brightly lit by the afternoon sun. Steve was standing there with a canvas, music playing softly as he swayed, his paintbrush in hand.

“How was your day?”, Steve asked, turning slightly to look at him.  
“Good”, he said with a nod. “I know I doubted uni being my thing, but Bucky was right: physics really is my thing.”

Steve snorted.

“Erik, you can control metal. You have an experience with it no one else can have.”  
“I know”, Erik said softly, lifting his hand and levitating Steve’s shield from where it sat. “Stark said I have hands of gold.”

After they’d come back from the war, Steve had dedicated himself to art and his work was renowned. Bucky was now working for Howard Stark, which paid most of the bills, and Erik was able to study at Uni. At the eve of the fifties, Erik could say he was… happy. Not that it had been easy or painless, but he had found a family in the two men. He had found a home with them.

“We won’t be here for dinner tonight”, Steve warned.  
“I know”, Erik answered. “It’s your anniversary.” He paused. “Ten years, isn’t it?”  
“Yeah”, Steve replied, gazing outside dreamily. “I never thought we could have this one day.” He grinned to him. “And you… you were unexpected, but I’m more than happy to have you.”

Erik smiled.

“And I’m glad I have you too, Dad.”

*

Erik slid his fingers over Charles’s cheek, staring into his eyes. When he decided to go on with his studies and see the interactions of metal and human mutation, he hadn’t expected to meet Charles. But he was more than happy he had. He was calm, knowing he’d meet nothing else than warm, tender acceptance from his fathers. They would love Charles, he knew they would.

“Tell me what you’re thinking about”, Charles whispered.  
“Take a look for yourself”, Erik replied with a grin, basking in the sun that drifted in through the window, onto the bed they were laying on.

Charles pressed two fingers to his temple and Erik opened his mind, the way he’d opened his heart, and closed his eyes. – _Bucky showing him a new move in the fresh snow, near Manaus. Steve throwing him his shield and letting him use it with his power. The way they held him at night, when the nightmares kept him up. Bucky’s warm, strong hugs any time he grieved for his lost family. Steve’s tender inflection each time he called him ‘son’. The first time he’d seen Charles, and how he’d been completely entranced._

He opened his eyes again, and kissed away Charles’s silent tears.

“Thank you, Erik”, Charles whispered. “They were beautiful memories.”

_Will is somewhere between fury and complete calm_ , he remembered. This was where he found his will, and he had never been so powerful. Because there was power in such a small word as “home”, and he’d made it his own.

“I want you to be my home too”, he murmured to Charles.

Their kisses had never been as sweet as the one that followed. Maybe this wasn’t home yet – but with time, it would be. That was his will.


End file.
